Thread by @bopinion

“The vaccine works. It is safe, effective, and potent.”

In 1955, those were the words that told the world that the polio shot was a success. But society soon found out the first vaccines were the end of the beginning — not quite the beginning of the end trib.al/dkSKh0J

The two viruses are very different. Polio is primarily spread through infected fecal matter, while Covid-19 is usually transmitted through respiratory droplets.

Yet the large-scale campaign against polio is a close precedent to today’s effort twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Records of polio cases date back centuries, but the first recognized U.S. outbreak was in Vermont in 1894. In 1916, a devastating summer in New York brought:

💀Death
🔒Lockdowns
🗯Anti-immigrant prejudice
🐱Culls of cats

It left a trail of dread trib.al/mreKfhK

By the 1950s, the only thing Americans feared more than polio was the nuclear bomb.

President Franklin Roosevelt, who contracted polio in 1921, helped turn a charity into a national campaign, encouraging Americans to donate coins for research. They did trib.al/mreKfhK

Then, success. Thanks to two vaccine efforts, cases plummeted.

After a year or so of Covid-19, we have vaccine breakthroughs, but we’re not yet near the finish line; eradication is distant trib.al/mreKfhK

There are too many unanswered questions. We don’t know enough about:

➡️Immunity
➡️Illness
➡️Vaccination
➡️Transmission
➡️Untraced cases

The goal of today’s shots is to bring down mortality rates, and to keep health systems running trib.al/mreKfhK

Covid-19 victory will require mass and even routine inoculation while tackling significant skepticism.

As that happens, it’s worth considering that the world has been here before. There are lessons to carry into the 21st century trib.al/mreKfhK

At the most basic level, it’s clear that central leadership is crucial at every stage.

Operation Warp Speed was a rare bright spot in the Trump administration’s otherwise dismal handling of the outbreak. Investment in manufacturing may have saved months trib.al/mreKfhK

The least-affluent countries will need:

➡️Healthcare structures
➡️Routine immunization
➡️Cold chains to preserve vaccines
➡️Timely testing

If not, controlling Covid and any future viruses will be impossible trib.al/mreKfhK

While good governance helps, poor decisions create lasting damage.

In the U.S. campaign against polio, inspection failures allowed tainted vaccines to spread the illness among children, leaving some 200 paralyzed and 10 dead trib.al/mreKfhK

The pause that followed meant more than 28,000 mostly avoidable cases were reported in 1955.

The incident caused deep misgivings and still fuel anti-vaxxers today. It also kept large pharmaceutical firms away from vaccines trib.al/mreKfhK

Trust is vital to success.

In 1947, a smallpox scare in New York caused some 6.4 million people to be inoculated in less than a month. That’s spectacular compared to the current pace of Covid-19 vaccinations trib.al/mreKfhK

Misinformation and threats have helped polio remain endemic. Rebuilding confidence is tough, whether in politically polarized Western societies or regions like:

🇵🇰Pakistan
🇦🇫Afghanistan
🇳🇬Nigeria trib.al/mreKfhK

We’ve seen over the past few months that fast action is possible with investment. Full victory is more elusive.

It’s relatively easy to get to 50% coverage, but learning from history can make it a triumph for everyone trib.al/mreKfhK